Taken by Death
by Carolare Scarletus
Summary: He had mistaken their cries for nothing more than all the bent-up energy of battling for so long. But, for this war hero, death was only another exception.


**House:** Slytherin

 **Category:** Drabble (Couple)

 **Prompts:** Dean/Seamus

 **Characters:** Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan

 **Word count:** 681 (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Short Story and Title)

 **Summary:** He had mistaken their cries for nothing more than all the bent-up energy of battling for so long. But, for this war hero, death was only another exception.

 **Rating:** T

 **Author's Note:** First ever Seamus/Dean, so I had to write it! Plus, my sister has been dying for SOMETHING for her one of her favorite pairings, so here you are lovely! :D

 _As always, enjoy_

-Carolare Scarletus

* * *

Taken by Death

* * *

It was quiet.

The horror that once rang like a pleading call of battle had finally dispersed, leaving the emptiness of the Great Hall to be pronounced against the foreboding night. He could still hear the screams. His arms fell heavy against his sides and for a moment he welcomed the silence. Though far from the relief he wanted, he accepted it nonetheless. Seamus Finnigan was among the survivors and in the badly weakened assembly of the students who gave their lives to save their home, one face fell from the masses.

Dean Thomas had survived.

A sense of euphoria washed over him like a pliant wave. Then, it crashed down at the sudden realization of what had transpired between them. He had only one night to tell him how he felt. To express years of longing on a bottle up wreck such as himself could generate. This chance could only have come once in a lifetime, and he ruined it by trying to keep him straddled to his side until this pathetic excuse for immortality had surpassed even their presumably selfish terms.

Strings of lies began to feed him.

It spoke of his treachery and misdeeds. Things that ought to have disarranged him from the simple fact that only love could provide, but it stand to reason that even the strongest concepts were diplomatically immune to such debauchery.

He had fled, or that's what he had excused him of. Instead, he had escaped. There was a difference between the two that even he couldn't understand, nor did he choose to do so now. Months after not knowing where he was, he received word that he had been picked up by some nomadic family somewhere in Chile. In his letters, he spoke of the Dark Lord's insistence on capturing all Muggleborns, and seeing that he could not be raised to such levels of protection, he took it upon himself to find it. That's when all the trouble seemed to steam from.

Seamus, though reserved with the connections he made, was guided with the culpability that he wasn't safe at all. That no one could be saved at this point.

He stood there, eyes casted ahead in a seemingly unveiling hold as he watched Dean move through the crowds, eyes searching the survivors as if looking for someone. Being so concealed and reserved, Seamus chose to hide himself. He didn't want to be found. He didn't want Dean to see him like this- covered in dirt, which had become the norm in the last several months. Ever since the Death Eater's infiltrated the school, ungodliness was a constant state of mind. Nothing like seeing the sin that you committed, even when the water came to wash it away.

The cries carried up and around the Hall.

When he believed the coast was clear, Seamus took a step back and headed down the broken chambers that was once the first-floor corridor.

There, in a section that he knew the Weasley twins must have overlooked, he came to a window. When he looked up, he wasn't met with a face of his most beloved person. He was met with nothing but his own reflection as a cloud of cold blanketed over him.

"You promised that you'd be safe," he said with steady conviction. "And, you lied!"

"There was nothing that you could have done to prevent it," Dean said, sorrowfully. He tucked his chin into the crook of his lover's neck and cried. If he had been there, really, it would have rocked him to his very core. "I made a promise that I'd come back to you no matter what, and here I am. Safe and sound."

Seamus looked at the once colorful figure of his love and let out a shuddering breath. He felt his cold arms tightened around him and for the most subliminal moments, relief was finally something that he could obtain. Safe and sound and taken by death- it was not all for nothing.

Because he didn't survive to see the victory of the light, either.


End file.
